


Not the Usual Marriage Arrangement

by DarkeStar



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Fluff, Honestly I prefer to consider it more a sprinkling of absurd rather than crack, Humor, M/M, Preventers (Gundam Wing), Slight Crack - Heero is a bit of a special cupcake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 10:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18092927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkeStar/pseuds/DarkeStar
Summary: “Hey, we got married for our country-”“Universe, technically,” Heero interrupted.  “With national borders having been dissolved and the colonies and earth attempting to operate under the same government, we technically got married for our universe.  Or for the united-”“Yeah, yeah,” Duo cut in.  “Technically we got married for king and metaphorical country-”“Would that be queen?” Heero mused. “While we currently don’t have a monarch, the last one of record would have been Relena, which-”“Right,” Duo cut in. “For queen and country.  We stayed married for the tax breaks.  The matching bling doesn’t hurt, either.”Wufei discovers something unexpected, learns his friends are even weirder than he thought, and the game of solitaire gets the last word.Rating is for one instance of explicit language, but not even that is graphic. Otherwise, content is acceptable for all readers.





	Not the Usual Marriage Arrangement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmberWolfe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberWolfe/gifts).



> I'd been active in the Gundam Wing fandom for quite a few years - quite a few years ago - and largely posted on FFnet. So this isn't my first work, just my first work on Archive. And the work is actually an older one that's never been posted. I thought it would be a fun way to start my revived fanfic writing career and give me an idea of how posting and everything works on Archive.
> 
> I may or may not post more GW things. GW is my first fandom love - the first one I started reading, the first one I started writing, the one I always go back to when I'm feeling nostalgic. It's really sad that the wonderful authors and the incredible productivity aren't there now, and it's hard to find new and compelling GW works, but I certainly understand why. I hope those of you out there still looking for and enjoying GW works like my contribution - and please be sure to let me know. This fic has a prequel mostly written, and a sequel planned, and if there's interest out there I want to be sure I spend some time working on those instead of letting my newfound love of the Sherlock fandom to eat me alive.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Wufei stopped just shy of the open office door and peered inside. A cubicle wall separated the front half of the room from the back, leaving only one desk readily visible. Duo was sitting at the desk, a clutter of office supplies and small toys filling most of the available space, deeply engrossed in a game of Solitaire. Wufei couldn’t tell if Heero was sitting on the other side of the divider, but he couldn’t hear the sound of tapping keys or rustling papers.

“Maxwell.”

“What’s up Wu’Finnegan?” Duo asked without glancing away from his game.

Wufei paused, then let it go. He wasn’t going to be distracted from his purpose. “You and Yuy are married?”

Duo froze, hand hovering just above the touchpad. “Wha? Oh.” He shook his head, like a dog shaking off water, and completed his move. “I’d forgotten about that. Yeah.”

Wufei gaped slightly. In a dignified fashion. “You forgot you had married someone? You forgot that you’d married _Heero Yuy_?”

“I’ve been busy.” Duo kicked his chair, whirling it around to face Wufei. “Anyway, it was for an assignment,” he said with a shrug. “We had to go in as ourselves and we had to be married, so we got married. It’s actually a pretty funny case… that I can’t actually say anything about because the details are still restricted.”

“Ah.” Wufei felt the need to smooth down his Preventer uniform shirt as he noted how disheveled Duo’s was. As he was busy fiddling with his sleeve and Duo was keeping half an eye on his next move, a bit of the devil took hold of Wufei and he forced himself not to grin. “When did that happen?” he asked nonchalantly, already planning what to get them for their one-year anniversary, though they’d no doubt have had the marriage annulled or dissolved by then.

Duo’s face scrunched up as he thought hard. After a second he twisted his chair around and slapped the cubicle wall. “Hey, Heero, when did we get hitched?”

There was a soft thump of a desk drawer knocking closed, a chair wheel squeaked, and then the rolling chair creaked as it reached the end of the plastic floor pad and hit the barrier of slightly raised carpet. Heero leaned back in his chair to peer around the cubicle wall at them both. “April 23, 199.” He leaned forward and with a grunt he pulled his chair out of sight.

Wufei gaped a lot. In a very dignified fashion. “But that’s… years.”

“Six years, three months, and twelve days,” Heero put in from the void of his cubicle space.

“What he said.”

“You’ve been married for… Good God, the case has been active for over six years?” 

“The case? Nah. We closed that up in four months, start to finish. Yes! Black king!”

“Then why are you still married?”

“Heero didn’t want to get divorced,” Duo said, most of his attention on the screen as he eyed the cards closely.

“Why?”

Duo reached out and smacked the cubicle wall again, then started to chew on his thumb nail as he attempted to convince the computer the illegal move was totally allowed.

With a thud, squeak, creak, Heero leaned back into sight on the other side of the wall. “Tax breaks.”

“Tax breaks,” Wufei repeated, wondering if somehow they’d learned he had to do an employee record search and they’d somehow guessed he’d end up looking at Duo’s file and they somehow had inserted a fake certificate of marriage to mess with his head.

“Considerable tax breaks,” Heero expanded.

“No small thing when you live in a big ass city like we do,” Duo added, giving up on tricking the computer into accepting an illegal move and finding another card.

“There’s the extended Preventer benefits, too,” Heero said. “There’s guaranteed time off for both spouses if one spouse is injured on the job. And guaranteed matching vacation. They can’t call one of us in without the other.”

“Heero’s got this thing about working with, um, non-me,” Duo explained, kicking his chair around again to face Wufei.

“You decided to stay married for tax breaks and Preventer benefits?” Wufei asked a little flatly.

“And I never have to do taxes again in my life,” Duo said cheerfully. “Heero promised he’d take care of all that.”

Heero nodded.

“Marriage is a sacred bond! You don’t get married to not have to fill out your own taxes! You get married because it means something!”

“Hey, we got married for our country-”

“Universe, technically,” Heero interrupted. “With national borders having been dissolved and the colonies and earth attempting to operate under the same government, we technically got married for our universe. Or for the united-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Duo cut in. “Technically we got married for king and metaphorical country-” 

“Would that be queen?” Heero mused. “While we currently don’t have a monarch, the last one of record would have been Relena, which-”

“Right,” Duo cut in. “For queen and country. We stayed married for the tax breaks. The matching bling doesn’t hurt, either.”

“We don’t wear our rings,” Heero reminded, grunting and pulling himself out of sight again.

“But marriage is a scared bond and-”

“Shut up! about the sanctity of marriage,” Duo hissed at Wufei, casting a wild-eyed look to the space where Heero had been. “Heero’s got a two-hour power-media presentation on the history of marriage and contractual ownership for everyone who flips their shit about it and he’ll damn well make me sit through it when he shows it to you, and I am not doing that again!”

Wufei took a step back, and then another as Heero’s head slowly appeared over the top of the cubicle wall, stopping so all he could see of Heero were his eyes and up. He knew that Heero was damned well taller than that and he had to be hunched awkwardly to achieve that effect. After a second Heero disappeared behind the wall again, just as slowly.

“Anyway,” Duo said, seemingly oblivious to what had just happened, “we’re sort of respecting the sanctity of the marriage bond thing by not running off and getting a divorce, one could argue.”

“Except you date all the time,” Wufei pointed out to Duo.

“Of course I do.” He glanced at his game of solitaire and gave it a suspicious look. “Wasn’t that card just…?”

“But haven’t you had a couple of serious relationships?”

“Just the one, actually.” Duo looked back to him. “The other woman was bat-fuckin’-crazy and thought we were soul mates, but I was not on that train. Or anywhere near that station. I’m pretty sure mentally I was on another colony.” He studied Wufei closely. “I’m straight. Of course I’m dating women. I like the women bits.”

Wufei took a few moments to seriously consider the situation as Duo went back to his game.

There was a thud, squeak, and creak as Heero reappeared, leaning back to look at Wufei. “It makes a great deal of sense. The only real thing that’s changed is the type of contract legally binding us together. We had Durable Power of Attorney before. Now we have a marriage certificate.”

“And bling,” Duo added. “I think it’s in my sock drawer.”

“It’s in my sock drawer, actually.”

Duo twisted around to look at Heero. “Don’t we share the sock drawer?”

“I thought you two had your own apartments.”

“Yeah, but we practically live in each other’s pocket, so we keep some of our shit at each other’s place. Heero’s place is nicer, too.”

“Only because I actually keep food in my apartment,” Heero muttered, sliding out of sight again.

“And my cat’s there. I could have sworn that card was over there a minute ago…”

Wufei decided to give up. “It’s certainly an interesting way to go about things, but somehow fitting to you two, with you being straight,” he said to Duo, “and Yuy being… Heero…”

“Heero?” Heero asked a little dryly from the other side of the wall.

Wufei reconsidered that. “Asexual.”

“Bisexual, actually,” Heero corrected.

“You’re bisexual?”

“Yes.”

“But… I’ve never seen you date anyone,” Wufei argued.

Heero thudded, squeaked and creaked back into view again, frowning. “I’m a married man, Chang.”

“But… Maxwell dates all the time!”

“So?”

“If you’re not dating because you’re married to him, but he’s dating even though he’s married to you, then he’s cheating on you all the time!”

Duo twisted his chair around with a look of great interest.

“No, he’s not,” Heero said.

“If you two are married, and if you dating someone else makes it cheating, then-”

“The way I conduct my end of the marriage does not have any bearing on how Duo conducts his end of the marriage,” Heero said firmly.

Duo pulled a massive stuffed spider out of the bottom drawer of his desk. It was the only thing that fit in there. He slouched in his chair and put the spider behind his head as a pillow.

“What the hell is that?” Wufei asked.

“Heero got him for me for our anniversary.”

“So you do honor some tenants of the marriage!”

“I never said it was our marriage anniversary. Hell, half the time I don’t even remember I’m married. It’s the anniversary of the day I finally kicked his ass on training field seventeen.”

“I give up!” Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of Duo’s cards change to a different card entirely. He felt completely justified in letting out an inappropriately triumphant “Hah!” and leaving the office before either of them could continue the conversation.

Halfway down the hall he heard Duo ask, “Is it just me, or is Wufei getting weirder?” A small pause. “Damn it, that card is definitely not my card!”

If Wufei began to giggle, thinking about cosmic balance and karma, it was no one’s business except his and the humming copier across the hall from his office.


End file.
